Jan. 11 history: Designated hitter

Jan. 11 history

In 1775, Francis Salvador, the first Jewish person to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress. He later became the first recorded Jewish soldier killed in the American War for Independence. 

In 1870, the first legislature in Radical Reconstruction met in Mississippi. During this time, at least 226 Black Mississippians held public office. Lawmakers adopted a new state constitution that ushered in free public schools and had no property requirements to vote. These acts infuriated the Southerners who embraced white supremacy, and they responded violently. They assassinated many of those who worked on the constitution. 

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919). 

In 1913, the first enclosed sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.

In 1927, the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was proposed during a dinner of Hollywood luminaries at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

In 1928, Stalin banishes Trotsky 

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, that made her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.

In 1963, the Beatles’ single “Please Please Me” (B side “Ask Me Why”) was released in Britain by Parlophone.

In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued “Smoking and Health,” a report that concluded that “cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.”   

In 1973, MLB's American League adopts designated hitter rule. American League adopts designated hitter rule | January 11, 1973 | HISTORY

In 1978, two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 27 capsule linked up with the Salyut 6 orbiting space station, where the Soyuz 26 capsule was already docked.

In 1989, nine days before leaving the White House, President Ronald Reagan bade the nation farewell in a prime-time address, saying of his eight years in office: “We meant to change a nation and instead we changed a world.”

In 2003, calling the death penalty process “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral,” Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state’s death row two days before leaving office.

In 2010, Mark McGwire admitted to The Associated Press that he’d used steroids and human growth hormone when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998.

In 2018, Edgar Ray Killen, a 1960s Klan leader who was convicted decades later in the slayings of three civil rights workers, died in prison at the age of 92.

In 2020, health authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan reported the first death from what had been identified as a new type of coronavirus. The patient was a 61-year-old man who’d been a frequent customer at a food market linked to the majority of cases there.

In 2023, Jeff Beck, a guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll and influenced generations of players, died at age 78.